Samurai – Steve’s Hobby Blog

Temple Dogs!

I have been promising to publish a battle report featuring the scenery that I have made for my Samurai collection. I did actually publish such a report, but on Facebook rather than on my blog. I thought that it might be useful to put a slightly expanded battle report into my blog featuring the details of the scenario and forces involved. So this is a slightly more ‘wordy’ blog than usual as I will publish the scenario over view as well as the two briefing documents for the players. I hope that you find these useful.

The left flank of the Ikko-Ikki side of the table. Note the Bamboo and woods to the side and the placement of the hill.

Temple Dogs

Scenario notes for both players

Both attackers and defenders may cross the large bridge without penalty or disorder if they can clear the bridge in one turn (2 actions). They may charge on the second move if permitted to do so ( Samurai and Sohei).

Neither side can cross the wide areas of the river.

Only skirmishers can use the small footbridge.

Units may cross the narrow lengths of the stream but will become disarrayed as per our usual games.

Artillery may fire over the heads of units that are 9 inches away from the gun and 9 inches away from the target without penalty provided that the gun is on a hill.

If artillery roll 2 or more sixes in a turn, it will destroy a section of the bamboo barricade as well as inflicting the normal casualties on the sheltering unit.

The Bamboo barricades confer a+1 save for any troops sheltering behind them ( except for artillery!). All charge bonuses are lost when attacking units immediately behind this barrier. In melee, both sides hit on a 5+ from the start. There is no additional armour save in melee. It’s harder to hit someone behind a fence but if you do it is assumed to be just as effective! You can’t cross a fixed bamboo fence but will have to fight through it. Or go around it!

A an attacking unit that moves up to a barricade may attempt to hack their way through it. It will take one full turn to do so and during this turn the unit may not take any other action. They will benefit from cover from the barricade if shot at but if engaged in melee before the end of the turn, they will fail to breach the barricade and instead fight the melee as detailed above.

You may not spot or shoot at a target that is inside the bamboo thickets unless they have moved to the edge and shot at one of the attacking units outside of the thicket.

The range for shooting and spotting inside the thicket is 4 inches. All units benefit from a +1 cover save.

The Samurai have no interest in taking Ikko-Ikki heads as trophies and the Ikko-Ikki player may refuse all single combat with leaders without penalty. So it is unlikely that additional morale tokens to be won in this way. The Ikko- Ikki player could attempt to initiate single combat if they choose to.

The right side of the Battlefield with the large bridge behind the Tori gate, the small footbridge and the temple tucked away at the back.

Ikko- Ikki Player

Troops

1 unit of Sohei Monks (armoured) 24 points

4 units of armoured Ikko-ikki 48 points

6 units of Unarmoured Ikko-Ikki (pointed as levy) 54 points

2 units of skirmishers 12 points

Bamboo Barricades 18 points

Total 156 points

Note that you have one samurai leader for the Sohei Monks that you must roll for his leadership – he cannot be a dolt! You have five leaders for the Ikko-Ikki units. Roll for leadership as normal but note that you may refuse single combat in melee without penalty.

You may deploy and arm your Ikko-Ikki units as you choose, either as blocks, lines or single units. Normal command distances apply.

You have NO Daimyo card.

You may deploy any unit up to halfway across the table and you may deploy hidden units in the Bamboo thickets using a marker to indicate the position of the lead unit.

The Sohei Monks may be concealed in the temple shrine. They may not be deployed in the Bamboo and will become disarrayed if they move into it.

Your formed Ikko-Ikki units may move and attack as normal through the bamboo thickets and wood and will not be disarayed.

You must hold the Temple for at least 6 turns. If you loose the Temple, you loose the game regardless of morale tokens lost.

The challenge for the Ikko-Ikki player is of course to hold out for 6 turns. Half of their army is unarmoured levy. However, they have the advantage of being able to move freely through the wooded terrain and have protection from the barricades.

You can see some of the Ikko-Ikki deployment here – bear in mind some units are concealed!

Samurai Player

Troops

1 unit of mounted Samurai Archers 24 points

1 unit of Samurai Foot 24 points

2 blocks of Ashigaru Bows & Naginatas 48 points

2 units of Ashigaru teppo 24 points

2 Cannon 18 points

2 skirmishing teppo 12 points

1 unit skirmishing Ronin 6 points

Total 156 points

Notes

If your guns roll 2 or more sixes in a turn, you will destroy a section of the bamboo barricade as well as inflicting the normal casualties on the sheltering unit.

Your formed units may enter the bamboo thickets and woods but will immediately become double disarrayed and stay as such without being able to remove the disarray until they leave the cover. They may only move at half speed inside the thicket and may not charge or counter charge.

You may not fire your artillery at the temple shrine!

Capturing the Temple will win the game regardless of morale tokens claimed. You must capture the temple within 6 turns or lose the game.

You can see that the Samurai have a much stronger force but are under time pressure to capture the temple. They cannot afford to hold back and try to out shoot the enemy. They are also hindered by the terrain and of course, the risk that their guns may self destruct when firing! The Daimyo card gives them a bit more flexibility when issuing orders as well as an extra morale token

The Samurai deployment. They avoided using the hill for the artillery and stayed well clear of the bamboo thicket! However, the woods, just visible behind the guns were to prove a danger!

Here is a brief battle report from the game:

Last night we played through a scenario for Never Mind the Naganitas with Ikko-Ikki defending a shrine from a local Samurai Warlord. Ian Callan and Austen Kime were the defending Ikko-Ikki commanders, with Andy Callan, Robert Andrew Kime and Wayne Ellington as the attacking Samurai. The scenario had a few traps built into it to challenge the players and to add to the pressure on the Samurai, they had six turns to achieve their objective and capture the shrine.

The Samurai wasted no time and went straight for the Temple. The Artillery eventually managing to knock down the barricades just as the attacking Samurai reached them. You can see the Ikko-Ikki defending the bridge with volleys of gunfire!

The game started badly for the defenders with an early foray by their hidden troops and skirmishers chased off and daunted. Add to that, the initial bombardment by samurai artillery was taking its toll, inflicting casualties on the Ikko-Ikki teppo men lining the barricades. The Samurai advance was focused and relentless! Add to that, Wayne, managed to win Six bonus cards in a row by rolling six sixes!

Of course, no Bill Hooks (or for that matter, Naginata) game follows a script and the game began to turn when the Ikko-Ikki pulled a special event card that enabled them to deploy a band of Ninja, who made swift work of destroying the Samurai artillery. However, the artillery had done its job and brought down two sections of barricades leaving the way to the shrine nearly open- a stream being the only barrier. Meanwhile, over at the bamboo, the Ikko-Ikki skirmishers brought down the Samurai cavalry with incessant gunfire. The Ikko-Ikki were feeling there was a chance as the turn count moved up!

The Samurai on foot charge across the bridge, brushing aside the Ikko-Ikki defenders

By now Wayne’s Samurai were in a position to assault the main bridge to the temple and successfully charged and routed the defending block of Ikko-Ikki. The response was a furious charge from the Sohei Monks that were concealed in the shrine that resulted in almost wiping out the Samurai and they retreated utterly daunted with just one man remaining!

The concealed Sohei monks come charging out of the Temple. They are more than a match for the Samurai and eventually put them to flight after a brutal combat!

It was still going to the wire. The Ikko-Ikki were fast running out of morale tokens and Andy had methodically moved his troops into position to deliver the killing blow. It all came down to turn 6!

In the foreground, the barricades have been destroyed. It is just a case of crossing the stream to take possession of the temple and win the game!

Somehow, by clever use of a forfeit card to thwart the Samurai advance the Ikko-Ikki prevailed in a tense final turn. The Samurai warlord had run out of time and as night fell he was forced to acknowledge failure. Well done to Ian(Ikki) and Austen(Ikko). Victory was theirs!

The close games are always the best! Ian and Austen managed to hold the shrine when all appeared to be lost!

The plan is that the full adaptation of Never Mind the Naginata’s will be published as part of the next Bill Hooks redux book later this year. If you fancy playing a Samurai skirmish/battle then I hope that you will enjoy the rules. In the meantime, there is a few months for you to paint your army in preparation – the lists above will give you some idea of the troops that you will need!

As always – Happy modelling!

Samurai Command

It’s fairly self evident that I have been rather pre-occupied with painting Samurai troops for my collection. I am getting to the stage where I have built enough to satisfy my gaming requirements but still have a few painting goals to achieve before I can move onto the next big project – whatever that is!

I picked up a box of the Fireforge command set at the recent Hammerhead show. The purpose being that I would have a nice Daimyo to lead the Fireforge faction of my army and give it a focal point. The three mounted commanders would also provide leaders for my Samurai cavalry contingent, thus satisfying my OCD requirement that all my units would be led by Fireforge models.

Front and back of the Fireforge command set

As you can see, the Fireforge set allows you to make 14 models ( although, confusingly, only 13 are shown on the rear of the box. My priority was to build the figures on foot, starting with the Officers.I also had decided to build three of the Ashigaru as musicians to compliment the banner bearers and the final model as an ammunition bearer for my Teppo Ashigaru. Although these options are not shown on the box, they are shown on the Fireforge website. I suppose I shouldn’t moan, but I will! I do wish that manufacturers would include a bit more in the way of instructions with their models or at least give a bit more help on their websites. To be fair, Warlord and Perry are very good at this, Fireforge are definitely not.

As you can see, I managed to make the ammunition bearer with the arm attached to the wrong side! I only spotted this as I started to paint it. So unfortunately, he was relegated to the back of the work bench whilst I considered the best way to fix the error. Obviously, a arm removal and replacement is required but I may change his role from Teppo support to Yumi support!

Meanwhile, I continued to paint the rest of the figures. First up, the sitting command group. These are my favourite figures from the set. The Daimyo, looks particularly stern, sat on his chair! I went to town on the stitching for these models and also added a pattern to the Daimyos shirt. Painting circles that small can be difficult, I often end up with a spot! It is easy to correct any errors by placing a blob of the base colour in the middle of the spot to get a circle again!

The Ashigaru holding the parasol is a nice characterful model. I did consider painting some sort of design on the brollie but decided to take the easy option and go for plain red!

There are two other foot samurai in the set. These will be officers for my Samurai units. I actually quite like the one that I have finished in black, white and silver but confess that he looks better from a distance than close up!

Next up are the two banner men. The one with the black banner has a script that I copied from pinterest. I’ve no idea what it says! It could be something inspirational for the army but as my brush work isn’t the best, it could be closer to a shopping list! As for the Takeda banner, this also is entirely made up. I’m afraid that I can be a bit lazy when it comes to researching such things and to be truthful, the Takeka banners that I had seen, I didn’t like…As my armies tend to be fictional rather than an attempt to exactly recreate precisely an army at a specific battle, it doesn’t worry me too much. The Takeda mon are decals from Veni Vidi Vici.

I wanted some Ashigaru Musicians in my HQ set up and the drummer team was an obvious choice. I was pleased with the finish on the drum. I used a red tone ink over Vallejo burnt red to get a nice lacquered effect.

To go with the drummers, an Ashigaru blowing a Conch horn. He completes my contingent of musicians for now. The mon symbol on his hat is from the warlord set of decals.

And so with the foot figures now completed the next project is the mounted figures and another cavalry unit. However, I will take a short break from painting Samurai – all that lace is straining my eyes!

One final figure to make it off of the work bench was the lovely Giants in Miniature figure for Wargames Illustrated, Takeda Shingen. He will actually be another unit commander in my army, so a bit of a demotion for him!

That’s it for now. Happy modelling!

Samurai Artillery

I had been given a couple of 3d printed Samurai cannon and the crew by good friend and gaming buddy, John Grant. As I had no immediate use for artillery in my set up I had them put to one side for a future project. However, that all changed when I was asked to put together a scenario for ‘Never Mind the Naginata’s’ involving the Ikko-Ikki. If all goes well, I’ll detail the battle in a future blog.

So the cannon were promoted to the work bench and painting started. Just a quick word regarding 3d prints. I am in awe as to the detail that can be produced with 3D printing – the rope work on the cannon is superb. However, I have my concerns with both the robustness of the final models – they seem to be brittle, ( I have had two break badly when dropped) and the longevity of the models once they are painted. I’m sure that all will be fine, I guess that my sceptism is yet another sign that I getting old!

The two crew to the left are the 3D printed models, the one to the left is the Fireforge conversion.

Back to the figures themselves. As already mentioned, they are superbly molded and are compatible with the Fireforge models that the majority of my Samurai army is made up of. The guns come with two crew members but I needed three for NMTN’s rules, so I made two ‘gun captains’ from spare figures from the Fireforge command set.

To make the bases for the guns, I used two 80mm x 60mm Mdf bases but as I wanted the gun crew to be removable in the event of taking casualties, I went for a sabot arrangement. I used some 32mm conversion rings to hold the crew. These were glued to the base, leaving a space for the cannon in the middle.

The next task was to cover the base in Milliput, levelling everything off ready for the next stage.

Trial fit to make sure everything is OK – figures are at the block paint stage.

I then covered the bases in Vallejo texture paste and added some fine talus for detail.

When it came to painting the cannon, I used a tried and trusted technique to bring out the detail on the wooden carriage. You can see a step by step guide in an earlier blog by clicking here:

TREBUCHET!

The barrel and iron work of the cannon was painted matt black, and the rope work painted with Iraqi Sand, washed with dark tone and re highlighted with Iraqi Sand. As for the crew, I went for two themes, based very loosely on James Clavells Shogun. That is one crew in browns, the other in greys.

Rather than a step by step guide to painting the figures, if you check out my previous Samurai blogs, you can read about the method that I use to paint Samurai and Ashigaru. I usually start with a black undercoat and then give the figures a light dry brush in medium sea grey to show up the detail. After that, I use a block paint and wash process followed by a highlight of the original colour. I don’t always put a pattern on the clothing but as there were only six crew in total, I added some dots, circles and flowers. These look better from a distance! I also added some Warlord Games Takeda decals, which with hindsight perhaps was a bit OOT!

Once the figures were painted, I went back to the base and used my standard basing process to complete the models. This involves painting the bases with Delhi Bazaar ( a green/brown colour) emulsion and then dry brushing with lighter shades of the same colour mixed with Iraqi Sand. I used Woodlands scenic’s green blended turf and then a mixture of Gamers grass tufts to add detail.

So with both gun crews completed, I am ready for battle!

So onto the next project – completing the rest of the Fireforge Command set!

Happy Modelling!

I’m back! Samurai Scenery.

My last blog post was back in November, some five months ago. I haven’t been posting for a number of reasons including minor ailments, household projects ( decorating!) and an aversion to spending any time on my desk top computer – it reminded me of work, something that in retirement I am keen to avoid!

The good news is that I have been thoroughly immersed in my hobby and there has been no lack of progress there! So, rather than retrospectively detail what I have been up to, I thought that I would just post a simple guide to making some battlefield scenery for my Samurai. I have plans for a specific scenario for my adaptation of Never Mind The Bill Hooks to Samurai warfare – Never Mind the Naginata’s, that will require some additional simple scenery pieces and this is how I went about making them.

The first piece was a Bamboo thicket, in fact I needed at least three of these to cover the left flank of the six foot by four foot battlefield. To make the thickets I had sent for a bag of 100 plastic bamboo plants from either Amazon or Temu ( I forget which!) that at the time cost me £14.99. I then used a 170mm by 105mm oval MDF base from Sarissa Precision and drilled randomly spaced holes through it. It is then simple enough to push the bamboo through the holes – I used a blob of thick expo super glue to hold the bamboo in place.

The next stage was to add some texture to the base using Vallejo paste and adding some detail with Various sized talus from Woodlands Scenics. I confess that in the past, I would have just used some small pebbles from the garden for this job!

I think that I could have used the bases without further detail but I followed my usual basing scheme of painting the base with a green/brown emulsion, Dehli Bazaar and highlighting with further dry brush coats of the same colour, lightened with Iraqi Sand. I then added some Woodland scenic blended turf using a watered down PVA glue and the job was finished.

The middle base is finished, the other two are in progress. In the foreground the next project.

With the bamboo thickets completed, the next job was to build some bamboo barricades for my Samurai shooters to hide behind. I decided to use up some spare 120mm by 40mm MDF bases that I had in the spares box and I needed six of these for the scenario. To make the fencing, I used some bamboo place mats that I had bought from the pound shop. You’ll never guess how much a set of four cost…

Bamboo place mat and coaster chopped up for fencing!

Once again, I drilled the bases with six holes at 10mm intervals and after cutting the bamboo to about 50mm lengths, pushed the uprights in and secured them with super glue. I then cut the horizontal spares to length and glued them on with super glue. The diagonal bracers were also cut and glued in similar fashion. Incidentally, I used my trusty Zuron sprue cutters to snip the bamboo to length – just watch out for bits flying around your work room!

As you can see, I’ve used Vallejo paste and Woodland Talus to detail the fences. I did consider leaving the bamboo in it’s natural state but decided to paint it a chocolate brown and the inked it with Army painter strong tone to give it a bit of a shine and texture. I left the ends of the posts unpainted though.

I then painted the bases and added some scatter and some Gamers grass tufts to finish.

The finished fencing and Bamboo thicket – all matching bases!

I did consider adding some thread around the joints for extra realism but that would have meant tying18 knots per fence – 108 in total. I decided that it was time to move on to painting more Samurai! Allowing for drying time, it was just about an evenings work to make three bamboo thickets and six Bamboo fences. All being well, I will show you them in use on the battlefield in a future blog. I hope that you found this useful.

Happy modelling

Work Bench Round Up for October

It’s been some time since I have written a blog post but the good news is that I have been busy gradually expanding my collection of painted figures and if not reducing my lead pile, then at least keeping it under control!

Rather than a step by step guide to a particular project, this post is really just a round up of some of the stuff that I have been working on. If I can get back into the habit of writing a regular blog, I will perhaps revisit some of the projects – I think that the making of movement trays might be quite useful.

I had to get this unit of Stradiots finished for the Derby Billhooks BASH. They are from Perry Miniatures and I bought them last year at ‘The Other Partizan’ and they would complete for now, my Italian states army of Gendarmes and Landsknechts.

The five Kern were from a set produced by Battle Flag Miniatures. I had already painted the three Gallowglass in the set and wanted to finish these to add them to my Irish army. The figure wearing the Morian Helmet is really more suited to the Elizabethan age but I doubt if anyone will notice if I sneak him into a WOTR army for service at Stokes Field!

I also finished the commander of the ‘Fighting Irish’ Battleflag miniatures set. I’ve hedged my bets a bit here and finished him in Spanish colours. He will work as a commander for a Spanish army of Conquistators, maybe a Tercico for the Italian wars or even as a commander of an Elizabethan force fighting the Irish.

In a change of direction, I painted this Rohan Standard bearer from the Magazine collection, Battle Games in Middle Earth. I have now reached issue 41 of this series. I really could do with a blog post rounding up my collection so far.

I’ve also been making movement trays for some of my units. These Anglo Danes were originally a Saga force but we have been playing ‘Never Mind the North Men’, yet another spin off from Billhooks, written by Jan Ash. I’m really quite pleased with the new trays. I used 60/000 black plasticard and 1/8 inch balsa strip to make the trays. Once you have the first one made, you can use this as a template and it is suprisingly quick to knock out more!

I now have 24 of the Fireforge Ashigaru archers completed. The plan is to have a complete army based on Fire Forge figures for ‘Never Mind The Naganitas’ another NMTBH’s rule set that I am working on.

With these 12 Ashigaru completed, I am close to finishing the army. Another twelve to do and the troops will be completed.

The last figure is from the Grey for Now ‘Seven Ronin’ boxed set. I painted him more or less at the same time as the Ashigaru, using the same colours. I’ll work my way through the set – they are lovely figures but I’m not sure what I’ll use him for yet!

That’s it for now. Happy Modelling!

Great D’Arcy of The Pale

Just one of the magnificent entrances to Rhodes Old Town

It’s nearly two months since I’ve written a blog post! In that time, I’ve had a lovely holiday in Rhodes, relaxing and reading as well as exploring Rhodes Old Town and the beautiful medieval fortifications built by the Knight’s of St Johns also known as the Hospitalers. I’ve also been on numerous picnics and days out with Julie and Grandaughter Eleanor. The sunshine has not helped, it has been at times too hot to paint and certainly not the weather to be sat in front of the computer typing a blog post. And then there is the Olympics and the football!

Despite all of these distractions, I have been steadily painting bits and pieces, including some Samurai Cavalry.

Samurai Archers – Four more painted to complete the unit

I’ve added four Gendarme Standard bearers to my collection.

I’ve also added a couple of LOTR models to my collection and I’ve now reached issue 38 of the magazine collection by painting Grima Wormtongue!

Finally, I’ve painted another of the ‘Giants in Miniature’ models produced by Wargames Illustrated, Great D’Arcy of the pale. In this case, D’arcy was a bit of a giant – he was reputedly the tallest man in Ireland at the time. William D’Arcy was an Irish lord who was involved in the Lambert Simnel plot to topple King Henry VII in 1487. D’arcy carried Simnel on his shoulders at Simnels coronation in Ireland. Fortunately for D’Arcy, he did not follow Simnel over from Ireland to the battle at Stokes Field as he may well have suffered the same fate as the rest of the Irish rebels, killed or hung as traitors during and after the battle!

He makes a nice addition to my Irish collection and will no doubt take to the Wargames table in future engagements as one of the commanders!

That just about rounds up most of my hobby activity for the last couple of months. The plan is that the blog will be upgraded and changed from the Arcane Scenery blog to ‘Steve’s Hobby Blog’ to reflect my newly retired status. I hope to write on a more regular basis and include a few ‘tutorials’. Mind you, I’m a bit concerned that my eye sight is deteriorating – the eyes on Great D’Arcy are a bit wonky when viewed up close but despite this, hopefully, fellow hobbyists will find some colour guides and research that I do useful.

Happy Modelling!

More Ashigaru

I continue to build my Samurai army. Well, the way things are going, I’ll end up with two armies. One exclusively based on the Fireforge models, the other a mixture of Warlord Games, Footsore’s Warring Clans, Perry miniatures and other odds and ends. To take a break from painting Fireforge, I decided to build a couple of units of the Footsore Ashigaru. I was lucky enough to acquire all of the packs available in the range (courtesy of the generosity of Mark Farr and Andy Hobday) and so painting these would also reduce my lead pile – two wins!

The first unit of Ashigaru with Yari ( spears)

I used the three packs of Ashigaru with Yari and the Ashigaru Sergeant to make the first unit. As this still left me two men short of the twelve needed for a unit, I added in a couple of Warlord figures. I also decided to change the spears from the metal ones supplied to the plastic ones that come with the Warlord figures. I had plenty of these in the spares box. So why the extra work? Well the metal spears are extremely sharp and I would be stabbing myself throughout a game using them. The other issue with metal spears is that they are inflexible and are more likely to cause damage to other figures and themselves, whereas the plastic ones flex and there is less change of committing Hari-kari with them! The plastic spears also look better and will blend in with my other Ashigaru units.

For the unit armed with Yumi (bows) I used the four different packs of three that are in the range to make a full unit of twelve. There are some lovely poses in these packs. I really liked the pair handing out the extra arrows. I decided to leave off the majority of the flags (sashimo) as they would get in the way of the arrows and quivers. The bows supplied with the figures are nicely done. I am concerned that they will not stand up to the rigours of gaming but time will tell. I think as a general comment regarding the Warring Clans range, its my opinion that they are superbly modelled and cast but are inclined to be less robust than other figures out there. They would make lovely display figures but I am concerned about breakages when it come to gaming. As I have said, time will tell and they are too nice not to be included in my army!

I cleaned up and assembled the figures – very little filing was required, the casting were excellent in this respect – they were then ready for priming. Once the black primer had dried – I’m now a great fan of the new Colour Forge primers – I dried brushed the figures with Vallejo medium sea grey and I used Army painter tanned flesh for the faces and hands.

I then blocked in the rest of the colours. Pastel Blue for the shirts and lacing; Off White for the socks, waist band, rice bags, sashimo and neck covers; Leather brown for the satchels, water bottles and quivers; Old wood for the arrows and sashimo supports, New Wood and German Cam black brown for the bows. I mixed things up for the trousers. On the bowmen, I used Rose brown and Beige brown with yellow ochre for the standard bearer. For the other unit of spearmen, I was less adventurous and just used Burnt Red for the trousers and neck guards on the whole unit.

Once I had colour blocked everything, I gave the figures various ink washes – flesh wash on the flesh, soft tone on the leathers, woods and cloth, dark tone over the whites. When the inks were dried, I then re highlighted everything with the original colours, touched up any obvious errors and then painted a simple three dot pattern in white on the shirts. I considered adding a pattern to the trousers but decided against it as I felt that it would make the figures look a bit ‘busy’ and I was too lazy!

The full block of Bowmen and Spearmen, based and in their movement trays ready for battle!

I followed my usual basing scheme, detailed elsewhere in my blog article and my units are ready for the battlefield. Look out for them in a forthcoming Never Mind The Naginatas battle report! Finally, I have yet to add the Mons (or clan identifier) to the flags. That’s partly because I have yet to make my mind up as to which clans to use. I already have quite a few Takeda troops but fancy some different banners for variety. I quite like the Mori mon as well as the Oda clan. I think that it will come down to where I can get the decals from as I don’t fancy painting them myself!

Happy modelling!

Samurai on a Stick!

I’m never sure of the best way of painting cavalry. Should you attach the rider to the horse and paint the model as a complete item? Or is it better to paint the horse and rider separately? I’ve tried both methods and I think that when it comes to painting a unit of cavalry, I find that a batch paint for the horses and riders separately works best for me. I tend to paint the horses in two’s or three’s, varying the colour for each batch and then adding different markings to give some variety. The same goes for the riders, unless of course, they are in uniform.

It’s then a question of how to paint the rider. By this I mean how do you hold the rider when there is no base to grip?

my previous method of mounting riders for painting

I’ve tried several methods. My preferred method used to be to sit the rider on a ‘saddle’ of blue tack attached to a stick. I then upgraded this to the method above. A wire stuck in bluetack through a plastic tube. It was OK but a bit over engineered!

My latest solution is just to drill the base of the rider and use super glue to attach a cocktail stick. The cocktail stick is more than big enough to hold whilst you are painting the figure and gives you access to all areas! Once the model is painted, I simply clipped off the stick with my trusty Xuron sprue clippers and the rider was ready to attach to his horse. Cheap, easy and effective.

Samurai cavalry primed, dry brushed and ready to paint.

As you can see from above, I ‘plonk’ the stick into a blob of blutack in between coats to protect the paint from any damage or if a wash is drying.

The horses were painted separately as a ‘mini batch’

The nearly finished Cavalry – just the basing to complete!

two out of six complete – just four more on the bench.

So, I have a new simple method of painting cavalry riders that seems to be both cheap and effective. Unfortunately, whilst it makes painting easier, it doesn’t make it faster. It’s taken me two weeks to get six horses and two riders completed. Just four more to go!

Happy modelling!

How’s Retirement going?

I officially retired on Thursday 28th March and with the Friday being Good Friday a bank holiday, it should have been an easy transition to a life of loafing and painting model soldiers. Hmmm. It didn’t quite work out as I planned. The fact that everyone else was off on their Easter break made it feel like nothing much had changed.

As grand parents, we found ourselves on child care duty for a few days over the last couple of weeks to cover the school holidays, so again, my time wasn’t quite my own. Add to that the glitches involved in closing a business down and the queries that have arisen regarding all sorts of family and other issues and it doesn’t quite feel like I have reached a state of contented bliss that retirement promised! Indeed, I have painted less in the last three weeks than I usually manage.

The good news is that it hasn’t all been work and complications. Eleanor ( my granddaughter) and I were able to finish off one of her modelling projects. She had been making and painting a Sarissa precision delivery van which she chose to complete as a Fresh Grape sales van. Most of the painting was done, it was just the basing to complete. Here’s the result.

I helped with the ground work but Eleanor did most of the painting and was very enthusiastic when it came to adding the tufts and flowers! It’s a nice little model for her collection and I very much recommend the smaller Sarrissa kits as great little project for youngsters ( Eleanor is 8 years old), so long as they have an adult to help with the super glue etc.

We also visited the Newark Air museum. Perhaps not quite on Eleanor’s agenda but Granddad thought it was appropriate. Actually, I thoroughly enjoyed the visit as did Eleanor. We were lucky enough to be able to sit in the Vulcans cockpit – it’s not always available. There is plenty to see here, mainly Cold War jets but a really good venue. Anyone coming to Newark to go to the Partizan Wargames show would be well advised to take time out to visit the air museum. It is less than 2 minutes down the road and well worth a coupe of hours from your day.

Despite all of the distractions. I have achieved some progress with my Samurai project. It has taken some time but my second unit of Teppo armed Ashigaru is now completed – just the movement tray to landscape! This now gives me 24 Ashigaru with Teppo, more than enough for the time being. So I’ve now turned my attention to mounted Samurai.

I have six assembled and awaiting painting. I’ve decided to paint 2 light brown ponies, 2 dark brown, one black and one white one for variety. The horses are first up and you can see the first two are ready for their riders.

I’ll paint all six horses first before returning to paint the riders. I’m hoping that now the Easter holidays have come to an end and I gradually tick off the job list, I’ll have a bit more time to get these finished!

As always, Happy modelling!

How Many Samurai?

Starting a new army can be somewhat daunting. I can see the appeal of small skirmish games where only a dozen or so figures are required but even Never Mind The Bill Hooks requires about 120 figures and from a standing start that’s still quiet a commitment to painting. So when I decided to write an adaption to Never Mind the Bill Hooks for Samurai battles – Never Mind The Bushido, I quickly realised that the army was going to take some time to paint.

Samurai vs Landsknecht – which is quicker to paint?

I did have a bit of a start. I had in the past been playing Test of Honour and so had a few painted figures with which to start the army. However, based on my initial army list from the first draft of the rules, I am going to need at least 131 figures. Well, I managed to create a Landsnkecht force of similar size so I just need to get on with it! As you will know if you have read my last blog article, I have started to upgrade my Test of Honour force and I now have 36 Warlord Games Ashigaru painted, as well as 18 of the new Fireforge Ashigaru ready for action. Add in 6 Warlord Ashigaru armed with teppo and a couple of Warlord Samurai and I have the makings of an army.

The next task was to paint some Samurai warriors. I would need at least 24 fighting troops in two units, as well as another seven based as leaders. I have decided to batch paint the Fireforge Samurai and started by painting a test model. As you can see from the top picture, I went for a simple colour scheme. For the Samurai, rather than dry brushing the armour to highlight it, as I did for the Ashigaru, I decided to leave the armour as a solid black and instead paint the stitching in a colour to add interest to the figure. I was also looking for a fast way to produce some reasonably painted figures that would look good as a unit. Perhaps I will spend a bit more time on the Samurai leaders but for now I need quantity!

The first four figures painted as a batch ready for basing.

Once I had figured out a basic scheme, I decided to paint them as a batch. Using of all colours, Vallejo Japanese uniform for the cloth. By producing these four, I now had a ‘Template’ for the next batch. This time I would go for eight to give me my first unit.

The next batch of eight on the work bench

I chose light turquoise for the clothing on four figures and stone grey for the other batch. Everything else will be the same colours for the batch, with perhaps the stitching on the armour also varying between the four. I fancy Blue for the turquoise and red for the stone grey but I may change this when the paint hits the figure! This should result in a unit of Samurai that look similar but not identical as you would expect. It also means that I should get this first batch finished within a week or so. My target is to have the army completed by the end of February! I’ll keep you informed of progress in future blogs.

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Merry Christmas And A Happy New Year!

Christmas is nearly upon us, so a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year to all of my Friends, Customers, Facebook associates and any one else that that takes the time to read my blog!

To be fair, my blog is as much a self indulgence as it is anything else. I hope that it is of use to fellow hobbyists as I try to share my research and thoughts on the hobby. I think that there are some useful tips and techniques and perhaps reading how someone else goes about building a collection or army is useful. Even if this means you avoid my mistakes!

Just some of the models in my Japanese collection.

It certainly is useful for me! For one thing, it keeps me focused on a particular project and it is an invaluable record of how I have done things in the past. A good example is my most recent project. I have written an adaptation of the ‘Never Mind The Bill Hooks’ rules for Samurai warfare – ‘Never Mind the Bushido’. Before I unleash these rules onto the Never Mind The Bill Hooks community, I want to sanity check them and make sure that some of the new mechanics that I have introduced actually work in a gaming situation as opposed to in my imagination!

In order to play test the rules I need an army. The easy way would be to borrow one from the generous friends that have made this offer. However, that would leave me in a position of not being able to play my own rules, should they be successful. No, I have to bite the bullet, so to speak, and get painting!

My new army taking shape – a mixture of Warlord and Foreforge figures

I do have a helpful starting point. I was very much into the original ‘Test of Honour’ game and I had painted a large war band as well as some scenery (see pictures above) All I needed to do was to paint the additional figures to up grade my collection into units for NMTB. I will need about 120 figures and my first army list will look something like this:

24 Samurai Warriors ( possibly in 2 units)

24 Ashigaru armed with Yari ( spears to form a ‘pike block’)

24 Ashigaru armed with Yumi (bows)

12 Ashigaru armed with Naginata (bills)

12 Ashigaru in two bands of six armed with Teppo (guns) as ‘Skirmishers’

8 Mounted Samurai armed with Bows

8 Mounted Samurai armed with Naginata or Katana

At least 7 Samurai Leaders

The rules also have an option of Ninja being ‘bought’, so I’ll need six of these!

The four to the left are the new additions – copied from the one on the right, thanks to my blog! Just the basing to finish.

Which brings me back to my blog. I have 8 Ashigaru armed with bows already painted. To get my first unit of 12 all I need to do is to add another 4. So when it came to remembering just how I painted them originally and the colours used, all I had to do was to check back on my blog and all the information that I needed was there! It is worth noting that it was 2017 when I last painted these! Without my blog, I would have struggled to remember how to start again!

If you would like to see more articles about how I built my Japanese Samurai collection, including the scenery, click on the link below to my Samurai category in my blog. I suspect that the New Year will bring a few more articles on this subject!

SAMURAI BLOG ARTICLES

THE COMMERCIAL BIT

I hope that you all enjoy your hobby as much as I do – our web site will have much of what you need! Click here to see our shop.

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Lots of Painting Time….

I’ve found my modelling time somewhat curtailed these last few weeks. I have been doing quite a lot of painting, just the wrong sort. We decided to re decorate the Hall, Stairs and Landing, the sort of project that I should have delegated to someone else! For a start it involved painting 11 doors and the respective frames, the woodwork on the stairs and the skirting boards. Add to that the ceilings and stripping the old wall paper off, making good the surfaces and then painting the walls ( just two coats…) and it’s fair to say that we had our work cut out. At my age and now that I am carrying a tad too much around the waist, going up ladders is never a good idea either. But I managed it and with a bit of innovation ( taping a brush to a stick!) I managed to reach all of the tall corners to cut in properly.

When it comes to painting woodwork, I’m old school, preferring to sand every thing down to get a decent key for the paint and then undercoating before applying the finishing top coat – Satin rather than gloss for me these days. I also prefer the oil based paints, which do come with their own distinctive smell that seems to linger but the finish is good and hard wearing. An innovation for me this time was to apply both the undercoat and the top coat using foam rollers. The finish was better than anything that I could have achieved with a brush and cut the painting time in half and the clean up time to practically zero ( you just dispose of the rollers when done).

The old Ceiling rose…how come so many different coloured wires?

I then took on the job of replacing the light fittings and the old thermostat for the central heating, which worked but was very discoloured and tatty. This turned out to be too much of a stretch for my DIY talents but fortunately, I didn’t electrocute myself or burn the house down. I did need rescuing by my neighbour and very good friend Barry, who is a trained electrician and managed to sort out the problems that I encountered.

When it came to the new flooring, I did get an expert in, although I did take up the old wooden stuff that I had laid many years ago. The last bit was to replace the hall stand with a new shoe locker from IKEA. Walking around that place is guaranteed to get your 10000 steps in! So after a final bit of construction, everything is more or less done. There’s a new carpet to be laid on the stairs and we are having a new banister fitted but both of these jobs are being done by professionals , so I’m off the hook!

Pippin and Merry or Merry and Pippin, I forget which one is which!

All of which means that whilst I’ve done a fair bit of painting, not much of it was on my miniatures! I did manage to complete another two LOTR miniatures, Pippin and Merry. I’ve also started a new project. I am writing a set of rules that will adapt Never Mind The Bill Hooks to the Samurai era of Japanese warfare. I have started to build and paint a new Samurai army based around the Fireforge sets, which I have also reviewed for Wargames Illustrated. I wont repeat my review here – you will need to get hold of the January edition of WI to read that but here’s a couple of pictures of the fireforge models being assembled.

Finally, here’s a picture of the first painted Ashigaru – I always do a test figure or two, before I start the batch painting of the units. I’ve picked up a few things to correct. I’m not that happy with the flesh but will have a play with a slightly different approach on the next models.

I will need to paint at least 100 or so of the Fire Forge models to get just one army ready to play test my rules. So it will be early next year before I am ready to go. I guess that I could just use unpainted models or buy some ready painted but as you will note from my exploits in decorating, I am just hard wired to DIY!

THE COMMERCIAL BIT

I hope that you all enjoy your hobby as much as I do – our web site will have much of what you need! Click here to see our shop.

ARCANE SCENERY

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Category Archives: Samurai

Temple Dogs!

Samurai Command

Samurai Artillery

I’m back! Samurai Scenery.

Work Bench Round Up for October

Great D’Arcy of The Pale

More Ashigaru

Samurai on a Stick!

How’s Retirement going?

How Many Samurai?

Merry Christmas And A Happy New Year!

Lots of Painting Time….

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